How a User-First Approach Helps Audience Targeting in Mobile

Receptiv CEO speaks about how brands can learn about consumers with app data

Receptiv

In the age of data and analytics, the old adage “the customer is always right,” could benefit from an upgrade to “the customer is the source.”

This much is true, at least, when it comes to the complex marketing channel of mobile. With the consumer continually connected, brands and marketers now have the capability to understand their needs, interests, and desires by examining the data on their most personal device — their phone.

Consider apps. In 2016, an eMarketer report found apps accounted for 86% of adults’ nonvoice smartphone time this year, with the mobile web accounting for just 14%.

So, a brand or marketers could tell a great deal about a consumer simply by reviewing the apps downloaded on their phone. It’s a portal into the person, or as Ari Brandt, CEO and founder of Receptiv, eloquently puts it: “An app collection is the DNA of the consumer.”

It’s this DNA combined with specific the data and analytics that allows companies, like Receptiv, to develop a user-first approach to audience targeting.

“After extensive primary research, we map out moments in the app experience, where brands and marketers have an opportunity to align with users,” says Brandt.

For instance, if the user has a workout-based app, Receptiv will distinguish a “reward” moment (where the user completes or accomplishes something), as Brandt called it, and align a brand to the moment.

“The brand’s ad will congratulate and further motivate the user, thereby linking the company with this positive moment,” says Brandt. “It’s an approach that simply enhances the user’s app experience.”

So, why aren’t more companies utilizing this consumer-first approach?

Well, according to Brandt, the marketing scale has been skewed over the past five years, with marketers and brands focusing more on efficiency and less on effectiveness.

“Brands and marketers are far less focused on why we advertise in the first place; we advertise to make a connection,” says Brant.

To make this connection, Brandt believes brand and marketers, first and foremost, need to learn about their consumers.